“Recurso de Amparo” or Writs of Amparo filed against eContabilidad requirement in Mexico no longer a viable strategy to delay obligations

When the Miscellaneous Resolution for 2015 entered into force requiring the report of the Electronic Accounting (“eContabilidad” or eAccounting), a great number of taxpayers that considered that their constitutional rights were violated filed Amparos against this new mandate. The immediate result was that thousands of businesses received a suspension of the obligation of:

Submitting or uploading their accounting information to the SAT servers

Using the Tax Mailbox as a new electronic mean of communicating with the SAT

Receiving electronic audits and Revisions from the SAT

Being the object of seizures and other enforced collection processes electronically among others benefits.

In July 2016; however, the supreme court of Mexico decided that the requirement of uploading accounting records electronically and using the tax mailbox as the new tool of communication with the taxpayer was constitutionally mandated. Nevertheless, the supreme court also decided that Annex 24 of RMF2015 was unconstitutional, due to the fact that some of the content of Annex 24 was not written in Spanish and the technical specifications for creating these files were defined by “an international community” rather than the Mexican authority.

This particular decision was applicable only to specific taxpayers that had made petitions of Amparos to the court based on those arguments. Some other cases may have been treated differently if the arguments in which they based their request of Amparo was different.

Therefore, the solution to those cases has not been uniform. Nevertheless, those taxpayers that obtained a temporary Amparo or a temporary suspension of the obligation of submitting the electronic accounting are not required to comply with that mandate for that specific year.

Should businesses operating in Mexico rely on the Writs of Amparo to avoid eAccounting requirements?

Many tried this strategy in 2015 and 2016 and successfully delayed the implementation of eAccounting due to the aforementioned issues within Annex 24. However, in 2016, the SAT issued a modification to correct the two issues that was then solidified by the courts and that denied any further Amparos or suspensions of obligations of compliance with eAccounting.

Following the proceedings, some tried again to appeal the corrections but were denied – a decision that was, again, upheld but Mexican courts.

There are some taxpayers that have filed Amparos against the 2017 version of Annex 24 of the RMF, based on the fact that the causes that made the Annex 24 of the RMF2015 unconstitutional still exist in the version 2017, or addressing new causes like hacking threats to their information.

However, the latest court decisions related to cases where taxpayers have challenged the remittance of eAccounting have clearly stated that the mandates included in the new miscellaneous resolutions are completely legal and do not violate the Mexican Constitution. Since the supreme court has declared the mandate of eAccounting constitutional, non-compliance will be subject to the sanctions established by Mexican tax law.

Based on these new developments, it is common opinion that after the number of decisions taken by the supreme court of Mexico, the use of the Amparos is no longer effective against the electronic accounting mandate.